


No One for Me But You

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Comfort, Established Relationship, Insomnia, M/M, Massage, No Plot/Plotless, Physical Disability, Post-Canon Fix-It, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24822730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Izaya is sitting on the floor in front of one of a window, his knees drawn up in front of him and both arms wrapped around his legs. It looks casual, almost, except for the predawn shadows that fill the room with mystery, and the faint glow of the cigarette lit and left to burn in the ashtray at the corner of the coffee table." Shizuo wakes to an empty bed and finds Izaya waiting for him.
Relationships: Heiwajima Shizuo/Orihara Izaya
Comments: 24
Kudos: 189





	No One for Me But You

It’s the empty bed that wakes him. Shizuo is deep in the hold of a dream, wandering through the hazy landscape of his subconscious with the unthinking acceptance of sleep, and if he were awake enough to be asked he would say he is completely unaware of the physical space around him. But when he shifts to turn over in the unconscious pursuit of slightly greater comfort his arm falls wide across the bed, and the lack of resistance when he is expecting the warmth of companionship stirs the first rousing edge of worry into even his sleeping thoughts. He moves again, his palm sweeping out across the soft of the mattress in instinctive search of something as his mind stirs towards protesting awareness, and when he finds nothing beneath his reaching fingers he opens his eyes and finds himself in drowsy waking.

He doesn’t sit up right away. He’s still mostly asleep, his thoughts running slow and hazy as he pieces them together with deliberate care, and in the first moments it’s difficult even to place his physical location, much less make sense of the curiosity rising to the forefront of his mind. But he knows what he’s missing, with the bone-deep familiarity of an absence he carried for years without ever growing accustomed to its weight, and after a few minutes blinking at the tugged-straight pillow and folded sheets next to him Shizuo braces a hand against the mattress to push himself up so he can swing out of bed and make his sleepy way out of the bedroom and out into the rest of the apartment.

He smells Izaya before he sees him. There is a familiarity to that too, a memory held so long it has taken on weight enough to shape reality to its form; but it’s not the metallic tang of Izaya’s skin that pulls him to the living room, not the spicy almost-sweet that clings to his hair that leads Shizuo down the wide hallway and around the corner. This is the far closer familiarity of cigarette smoke, flat and bitter as it hangs in the air, and Shizuo can guess at what he’ll find even before he rounds the corner to the living room to find Izaya there.

Izaya isn’t looking at him, though he must have heard the dull weight of Shizuo’s footsteps as the other came down the hallway behind him. He’s facing out, his attention turned towards the expansive glass windows that are one of the only things about his new apartment to remind Shizuo of the old. They run floor to ceiling in a single unbroken pane, and Izaya is presently sitting on said floor directly in front of one of them, his knees drawn up in front of him and both arms wrapped around his legs. It looks casual, almost, except for the predawn shadows that fill the room with mystery, and the faint glow of the cigarette lit and left to burn in the ashtray at the corner of the coffee table.

Shizuo stands at the edge of the hallway for a minute, just watching. The sky is dark, not showing even the first silvered glimmers of the coming dawn; even with his eyes sleep-adjusted to darkness it’s hard for Shizuo to pick out the greater shadows of Izaya’s hair and shirt from the space. It’s easier to see the burning ember of the cigarette glowing like a star against the darkness, and the thin curl of smoke rising from the end to wind through the air and trail ghostly fingers around the ends of Izaya’s hair brushing at the back of his neck. His skin is white against the dark around him, the pale curve of his nape the greatest clarity Shizuo can find from the backdrop of night, and after a long moment of watching Shizuo stirs himself to come forward from the hallway with a far lighter tread than he took from the bedroom.

Izaya doesn’t look back as Shizuo approaches, though Shizuo has no real doubt that the other is aware of his presence. He doesn’t speak to acknowledge Shizuo, doesn’t shift his position to so much as tense, even when Shizuo takes a knee so he can settle himself cross-legged just behind Izaya’s shoulder. They are very close, near enough that Shizuo’s knee is almost touching the angle of Izaya’s hip, but Izaya doesn’t turn around. Shizuo almost wonders if he’s fallen asleep sitting up, unlikely though that seems for someone as insomniac as Izaya, and then Izaya speaks with a clear precision that resolves all question of his attention.

“It’s a little early for you to be up.”

Shizuo shrugs one-shouldered. “I realized you were gone.”

There is a flicker of movement at Izaya’s mouth, the brief twist of what might be a smile. “And you were going to hunt me down?” He angles his head slightly in Shizuo’s direction. His lashes dip dark to speak to the weight of his gaze finding the other. “I had an hour lead on you.”

Shizuo lifts his hand from his lap to reach out and curl his fingers into the loose hem of Izaya’s shirt. “You didn’t get very far.”

The smile pulls at Izaya’s mouth again, tugging the corner of his lips into a flash of dark amusement. “I never seem to, nowadays.”

He turns his head away again, looking back out the window at the silvered outline of the city below. Shizuo goes on watching him, his gaze lingering at Izaya’s profile as he lets his idle hold slide into the press of a thumb against hip, the touch of a finger to the bare skin just over the top of Izaya’s pants. Izaya doesn’t speak to acknowledge the contact, doesn’t so much as turn his head in recognition, but he doesn’t shift to pull away or lift his hand to push Shizuo back, and Shizuo can recognize that for the implicit encouragement it is, coming from Izaya.

They sit in silence for long minutes. Time seems strange, blurry at the edges and slippery to grasp, as if Shizuo might still be halfway in the dreams that pulled the hours of night away from his unresisting consciousness. On the other side of the window the dark of night eases back, drawing from black to silvered grey in such gradual anticipation of the dawn that Shizuo can hardly tell it is happening at all, even as the details of the city come into focus from the softened dark of the night. By the time Izaya speaks Shizuo can pick out the details of windows and doorways from the adjacent apartment buildings, can see so clearly he wonders if the sun has already risen without his noticing the moment of dawn.

“I used to think about this.” Izaya’s tone is casual, as if he’s retelling a story he’s told dozens of times before, repeating the familiarity of a well-worn memory between the two of them instead of embarking into wholly new territory. Shizuo turns his head to look at him but Izaya is still gazing out at the city. He looks almost entirely as he once did, as if the years that have passed have simply skipped over him; the only indication of the present that Shizuo knows with such vital clarity is the angle of Izaya’s legs, where they are drawn up before him and braced within the hold of his arms rather than left to angle into comfortable, unthought grace. It looks almost natural, almost as if Izaya is acting on impulse rather than necessity; it’s only because Shizuo knows to look that he sees the tension in Izaya’s fingers where he’s holding his knees up, the flex that speaks to the movement that is rarely comfortable and never casual, anymore.

Izaya isn’t looking at him, still hasn’t so much as tipped his head to acknowledge the weight of Shizuo’s attention. Shizuo keeps looking anyway. “What did you think about?”

“This,” Izaya says, with a sideways jerk of his head that catches Shizuo and himself into a single space. “When I couldn’t sleep. I’d...imagine.”

Shizuo shifts his thumb against Izaya’s back, fitting his thumb under the other’s shirt and up against the pale skin at his hip. “Like fantasies?”

Izaya shakes his head sharply. “No,” he says. “That generally woke me up more than put me to sleep.” His lashes dip, the dark of them softening the flicker of his gaze as it darts sideways to touch against Shizuo’s face. “Though I had plenty of those too.” His mouth twists on a suggestion of what would have been laughter, once, what is softened towards self-deprecation now. “I could tell you about those instead, if you want.”

Shizuo snorts and shakes his head. “Another time.”

Izaya lifts a shoulder in a careless shrug. “Suit yourself,” he says. He looks back out the window as his mouth softens away from his brief flicker of amusement. “A lot of them are impossible to manage now, anyway.”

Shizuo doesn’t reply to that aloud. He slides his hand down instead, spreading his fingers wide so the press of his palm against Izaya’s back is steadying instead of ticklish. Izaya curls forward, his shoulders dipping in towards his knees so his back curves out to press against Shizuo’s touch, and when he goes on speaking it’s with his head ducked forward and his hair falling to a curtain around his bowed head.

“It was easier at night,” Izaya says, speaking softly to his angled-up knees. “During the day everything felt so real, it was impossible to get away from some reminder or another. But at night—” He breaks his sentence off half-finished, pausing over silence before starting again.

“Sometimes I imagined you were with me,” Izaya says. “When I couldn’t stay in bed I’d leave it unmade and pretend that I had left you asleep behind me, that you could wake up and come after me at any moment.”

Shizuo huffs through his nose. “Sounds relaxing.”

“It was.” Izaya sounds not at all self-conscious; just distant, as if he’s speaking from within the fantasy world he’s describing. “I could sit up for hours and tell myself that you were still asleep in bed, that I could go back and wake you up anytime I wanted.” He tips his head to the side so he can rest against the support of his angled arms. “I could keep doing it right until the sun came up.”

Shizuo watches Izaya, the tip of his head, the tangle of his hair falling against his arm. His eyes are heavy, his shoulders slumped; Shizuo can see the shadows of insomnia dark and bruised beneath the weight of Izaya’s lashes as clearly as he can see the tension in the grip of the other’s fingers that speaks to the effort that comes of bracing the weight of his legs upright. The tells are clear as the shadows fade, their cover stripped back by the threat of the rising dawn, but Izaya doesn’t move to turn away or look back to see Shizuo watching him.

“It’s the opposite now,” he says, speaking in almost-a-whisper, the words so soft at his lips Shizuo wouldn’t be able to hear them but for the perfect, breathless silence of a world waiting at the cusp of daybreak. “It seems like maybe this is all just another one of those fantasies, like the sun is going to come up and everything will disappear like it used to.”

Shizuo swallows past the knot in his throat, the tension of emotion that always rises in answer to Izaya’s whispered admissions of uncertainty. “It won’t,” he manages to grate out, sacrificing ease of speech for the simple fact of the words. “I’ve been here all this time, I’m not going to suddenly disappear.”

“I know,” Izaya says; but he doesn’t turn his head, and the tension in his fingers doesn’t ease. He’s still looking out at the city, his shoulders still taut and straining as he braces against the blow of the oncoming dawn, until Shizuo can see the shape of the waking nightmares written into the lines of his face and the tension cording along his neck. Izaya’s whole body is held tight as a fist, clenching white-knuckled to the reality some night-dark part of him still can’t trust; and Shizuo lifts his hand from Izaya’s shirt, and reaches out to brush his fingers to the back of Izaya’s neck, just over the loose curve of his collar.

Izaya doesn’t turn, even at the contact. His gaze is fixed on the city, his mouth set to such tension the color of his lips is bled to white; if Shizuo didn’t know him so well, he thinks he might miss the fractional shift in the curve of Izaya’s spine, in the flex of his fingers clasping around his wrists. It is hardly there, barely a recognition and nothing like a surrender, but it’s still something, and Shizuo keeps his hand where it is, his palm resting gently at the back of Izaya’s neck while they wait for the dawn to break.

It happens all at once. The light over the city has been brightening for minutes, shadows giving way to grey that lightens to a pale illumination more than enough to grant color to the weight of night and offer daylight in everything but name. Shizuo wonders for a moment if they will notice at all, if the sun will skip over the horizon without either of them catching it; but then Izaya relaxes, his shoulders loosening under Shizuo’s touch, and a heartbeat later Shizuo sees the brilliant rays of morning sunlight pour out across the cityscape beneath them. They wash the world to gold, glittering bright against windows and the shine of apartment façades, and Izaya’s shoulders slump, the tension draining from his body to sag him into heavy-limbed exhaustion all at once.

“Well, there’s that,” he says, and finally turns his head to look sideways through his lashes at Shizuo. “Still here, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo’s mouth tugs towards a smile. “Think so,” he says. He slides his hand up to smooth against the back of Izaya’s neck. “I don’t feel like a dream.”

“That’s exactly what a figment of my imagination  _ would _ say,” Izaya says, but there’s no teeth on his tone, and he’s arching back into the contact as Shizuo slides his palm down the other’s spine. Izaya’s shoulders pull forward as he curves himself into a stretch, ducking his head so his hair tumbles down over his face to half-cover an enormous yawn. “You have remarkable physicality, anyway.” He lifts his head back up and shakes his hair out of his face. The dark of insomnia is still there, weighting beneath his eyes and soft at his mouth, but without the stress of tension beneath it the shadows just make him look drowsy, like they’re watching the last fading light of the day instead of the first of it. Izaya eases one of his arms from its brace around his knee, reaching out to crush out the smoldering cigarette before he lifts his hand out towards Shizuo’s shoulder. “Feel like making yourself useful?”

Shizuo answers by action rather than speech, rocking forward over his knees so he can brace a steadying arm across Izaya’s back before working his other under the other’s drawn-up legs. Izaya hisses an exhale as the motion jostles the cramped muscles but he doesn’t protest, just reaches up with his other arm to hold around Shizuo’s neck as the other gets to his feet.

“Where to?” Shizuo asks once they’re both balanced. “I could take you back to bed, if you want.”

“A tempting proposition, Shizu-chan,” Izaya purrs. He turns his head to jerk his chin in indication. “I’ll have the couch for now.”

“You sure?” Shizuo asks, but he’s already moving in obedience to Izaya’s instruction. “You won’t sleep as well out here.”

Izaya huffs a laugh. “I didn’t sleep at all in bed,” he points out. “It won’t be that hard to top that.” He lets go of Shizuo’s neck so he can brace himself with a hand at the back of the couch as Shizuo lowers him to the cushions, taking special care with the process of unfolding Izaya’s legs from the steep angle in which they’ve knotted themselves. Izaya sets his lips tight and turns his head to look out the window in a show of disregard, but Shizuo stays on his knees alongside the furniture, bracing his thumbs in against Izaya’s calves and the sides of his thighs until he’s worked the worst of the tension free. By the time he’s smoothed away the greatest knots the press of pain has faded from Izaya’s mouth as well, and he has one arm folded under his head to support himself against the couch. His lashes are heavy where they half-shadow his eyes, but Shizuo doesn’t comment on the weight of sleep softening Izaya’s expression any more than he acknowledges the focus of Izaya’s idle gaze trailing across his face.

“That’s as good as it’s going to get,” Shizuo finally says, easing his hold from Izaya’s legs as he settles them. “Do you want any pain meds?”

Izaya shakes his head without moving from the support of his arm. “No,” he says, his voice as dreamy-soft as his gaze. “I can sleep without them.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to do without,” Shizuo points out.

Izaya lifts his free hand to push against Shizuo’s hair. “Shut up, Shizu-chan,” he says, in a drowsy approximation of his old teasing lilt. “Don’t you care that I’m trying to sleep here?” The corner of his mouth is turned on a smile, which pulls amusement to Shizuo’s lips in turn, and when the hand at his hair slides down to curl against the back of his neck Shizuo submits to the unvoiced request and settles himself to sit at the edge of the couch alongside Izaya.

Izaya falling asleep is a slow process, whether he manages it in their bedroom or has to fight against the glow of daylight streaming in through the windows of the living room where he’s lying across the couch. Shizuo stays where he is through the whole of it, tracking the almost imperceptible softening of the crease between Izaya’s brows and the easing of the hidden smile against his mouth into the calm of unconsciousness. The hand at the back of Shizuo’s neck shifts, Izaya’s fingers reaching for traction against the pull of sleep; and then his arm goes fully slack as his body relaxes under the demand of a night’s accumulated exhaustion.

Shizuo stays still for another minute, sitting at the edge of the couch with Izaya’s arm draped around his shoulder while he watches the other drift into sleep. Then he reaches up to close his hold around Izaya’s wrist so he can gently move his arm back over the couch and away from any disruption caused by Shizuo’s movement. Izaya doesn’t stir at all, doesn’t so much as frown in his sleep in recognition of the contact; he’s very still even when Shizuo leans in to shadow him from the bright of the daylight and ghost a kiss against the dark of his hair.

Shizuo would swear Izaya is completely asleep, utterly beyond any awareness of Shizuo’s movement or anything else in the room around him; but the corner of his mouth is tilted up when Shizuo draws back, pulling on the faintest hint of a smile. Shizuo looks down at him, finally soothed into the sleep he couldn’t find from the shadows of night, and he touches a gentle hand to Izaya’s hair, and gets to his feet to leave him to the comfort of his dreams.


End file.
